


A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action

by elfin



Series: A Little Less Conversation [1]
Category: Stan Lee's Lucky Man (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:13:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: In the end, they get under one another's skin





	A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action

**Author's Note:**

> I keep thinking, how am I the only person, apparently in THE WORLD, who watched the show and SAW this?!  
> If you did, please, *please* comment and say hi :-) It would be good to know I'm not alone!

**A Little Less Conversation…**

 

Harry opened the front door of his apartment and smiled when he saw who was standing out in the hallway. 

‘This is becoming a habit.’ He stepped back to let Alistair in. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good habit.’

His boss smiled a little self-consciously, handed over a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of red wine that expensive even to Harry’s untrained eye.

He busied himself finding glasses and a corkscrew, plates and cutlery, while Alistair took the trays out of the bag and peeled back the lids. 

‘Do you have chopsticks?’

Harry stared at him. ‘What do you think?’

Alistair shrugged. ‘Two years ago I’d have said not. Now… I’m not so sure.’ He gave that little half-smile Harry was starting to recognise as just for him, and picked up a couple of the trays, taking them through into the lounge, making himself at home. He took the glasses and the bottle and followed.

It was strangely comfortable, sitting on the couch, spooning egg fried rice and Szechuan Chicken onto his plate. The wine was as good as he’d suspected it would be, which meant something was up. Last time, Alistair had brought curry and a six pack.

He constructed his next sentence with more care than he’d put into anything for a while. ‘Don’t think for a moment that I’m unhappy with the company, but is there something you wanted to talk to me about?’

Alistair didn’t respond for a minute or two, but he looked content enough. ‘Next time, I’ll bring chopsticks. Eating Chinese with a fork feels like the first step on the road to anarchy.’ 

He chuckled, sat back, relaxed. It was a strange feeling. Relaxed in someone else’s company wasn’t something he’d felt in a while. He was fairly sure at least one of the two women in his life wanted to kill him. Maybe they both did. Alistair might not like him all the time but he didn’t think his life was in danger at that moment. 

‘If there’s going to be a next time, I’ll buy some chopsticks.’

He saw a slow nod and smiled to himself. Of all the weird and wonderful relationships his life had filled up with in the last couple of years, this one had to be the weirdest. 

When most of the food was gone, they sat back with refilled glasses and Alistair finally answered his question of thirty minutes ago. 

‘I want to ask you the same question everyone else who knows you does, the one Suri’s asked you a hundred times but you’ve refused to answer.’

‘Okay.’

‘Why are you so very lucky, Harry? I mean, we all have good days but you... you can’t lose. Yesterday, you should have been shot. Thirty rounds fired directly at you in a drive-by shooting and you don’t have a single scratch. That’s moving into the realms of the supernatural, wouldn’t you say?’

Harry laughed. He hadn’t meant to but he didn’t think he’d heard the term supernatural applied to the bracelet’s charms in all the time he’d been wearing it. He thought about lying, but decided against it. Alistair was involved; the more he knew, the safer he’d be.

‘I met a woman in a casino.’ He expected some sarcastic comeback but none came. ‘When I was with her, I couldn’t lose. We spent the night together. When I woke up, she’d put this bracelet on my wrist.’ He lifted his left arm, pulled his sleeve back. The polished bronze seemed to twinkle in the low level lighting. ‘Ever since then....’ He shrugged. ‘People have tried to remove it, to their peril. People have tried to kill me and have wound up dead themselves. Every guess I take turns up trumps, every hunch plays out. I can predict every flip of a coin, every turn of a card, every spin of a roulette wheel. It’s why I don’t gamble anymore. The chance has gone. It’s no fun anymore.’

He glanced at Alistair who was staring at the bracelet, dropped his hand back into his lap, sipped his wine and waited for the next, inevitable question. 

‘Where can I get one?’ That wasn’t it.

‘You believe me?’

Alistair frowned. ‘I admit it’s farfetched but it’s difficult to refute the evidence.’ He reached over and touched the bronze band. Harry felt the warmth of his palm across his skin. ‘You really can’t take it off?’

‘Believe me, I and others have tried every way we can think of, up to and including hacking through my arm with a circular saw.’ He felt Alistair wince. ‘And apparently it’s almost impossible for someone else to kill me, so the only way it comes off is if I take my own life.’ Alistair chuckled at that. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘The idea of you committing suicide. That’s something I would never believe. You enjoy being you too much.’

‘Well, I’m glad you have such a high opinion of me.’

He caught the expression on Alistair’s face, suddenly serious. ‘Never doubt my opinion of you. I did, for a while, but even when I was trying to expose you I considered you one of the best detectives I’ve ever worked with.’

Harry had no idea what to do with that. ‘You know what? I think you went after so hard Steve because you felt guilty for what you both did, or rather tried to do, to me. You need to let it go. I have. Because you were right, I wasn’t playing by the rules. I’ve never been bent, never been corrupt, but I have played fast and loose with due process and procedure. I’m not saying I’m not good at my job....’

‘Obviously.’

‘But I have changed.’

‘That much is obvious. And I kept wondering why.’ He tapped his fingers on the ancient amulet, sending tiny vibrations through Harry’s wrist. ‘Now I know.’

Without thinking, Harry put his own fingers over Alistair’s to still them, just for a moment. They were warm, like the bracelet. ‘Obviously, it goes without saying that the less people who know about this, the better. People who’ve tried to take it off me have ended up dead. And not all of them deserved it. I’m trying not to lose myself, because there are downsides as well as up.’

Alistair hadn’t moved. ‘Such as?’

‘The man who wore this before me threw himself off one of the tallest buildings in London to make sure he died.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know for sure.’ He rested his gaze on Alistair’s long fingers, the tips on the metal cuff, skin against skin until his sleeve got in the way. He could feel the heat of him through the cotton. ‘Maybe in the end the lines between luck and judgement blurred, maybe he didn’t know what was real anymore.’

Alistair seemed to consider that, then he drew his hand back and emptied his glass in one swallow. ‘In that case, it’s good that you have friends to remind you.’

They took everything into the kitchen and Alistair shrugged on his coat. Harry wanted to tell him he didn’t have to go, but he wasn’t sure what it would mean if he stayed. He opened the door and let his boss walk out of it.

Out in the hallway, he stopped and turned, ’Good night, Harry.’

‘Sweet dreams, Alistair.’

That knowing little smile again, and he was gone.

 

 

**…A Little More Action**

 

Harry can feel the edges of the bracelet pressing into his skin as Alistair’s hands tighten around his wrists, pushing him back into the mattress. It’s not pain, just an awareness, like the sting of his nipples after Alistair’s teeth, and the red lines on his inner thigh made by the drag of short nails over sensitive skin.

 _‘Isabella said you liked me.’_ That’s all it had taken to pour kerosine onto the slow burn between them and spark this. 

_‘She told me the same thing. I think she wanted to watch.’_

Tiny bites over his chest, pulling at the hairs, a soothing tongue. He’s never imagined they would be like this. Then again, he’s never really imagined them. 

His cock is aching, straining to get in on the action, but Alistair’s being careful, he’s not even felt the accidental brush of a taut thigh. 

‘Are you torturing me?’

‘If I was, you’d deserve it.’

‘What have I ever done to you?’

Alistair lifts his head, silvery gaze focused entirely on Harry now. They’re beautiful eyes and he can’t understand why he’s never noticed before.

‘You’ve driven me to the brink of insanity. Everything you’ve said and done, impossibilities backed up by Isabella and the very fact you’re not dead….’ His expression softens for the first time since they tore each other’s clothes off and fought for dominance in the bedroom. ‘You scare the shit out of me. I’m frightened for you twenty-four-seven. That’s what you’ve done to me.’

Suddenly it’s hard to breathe, and it’s nothing to do with Alistair’s weight cautiously balanced on him. ‘I’m sorry.’ For once in his life, he means it.

In reward, Alistair sticks his tongue down his throat and moves his left leg so that his erection nudges up against Harry’s and he goes off like a firework on Guy Fawkes Night. 

Alistair laughs, triumphant. ‘Jesus, Harry.’

‘I guess it’s the luxury of being in bed with someone who hasn’t tried to murder me.’

He leans down and kisses his neck, just on the pulse point. ’There’s time. Now, turn over.’

 

**All This Aggravation…**

 

It’s been a while since he’s experienced fear, real fear; the kind that sends the pulse racing and the heart pounding, the kind that beads sweat on the forehead and in the palms of the hands. The last time, Daisy was chained up and drowning. Harry saved her.

The gunman is going to fire, he knows that without a shadow of a doubt. There are only two possible targets and he knows with equal certainty that it isn’t going to be him. It can’t be. The bracelet won’t allow it. It’ll protect him, even if what he wants is to be the one who gets hurt, to be the one to take the bullet this time around. Because they’ve been here before and last time Alistair almost died.

He can’t lose him again. He can’t lose him now.

He doesn’t know what else to do so but stand in the path of the shot. Alistair’s yelling, screaming at him, just as scared, just as desperate, but he can die. He’s allowed to die. Harry isn’t. This is why Lermentov jumped. He wasn’t worried about karma, about the balancing of the scales, he’d lived too long knowing that while he was protected, everyone around him - the people he loved - were in danger. 

There are pleas, bargains, still falling from Harry’s mouth, he’s making it up as he goes along, hoping he can prolong the moment, hoping Alistair will take the opportunity to get the fuck out of there. But he can still feel him at his back, close enough that even if the bullet is allowed to pierce Harry’s body, it’ll likely exit his back and take Alistair out too.

The shot, when it comes, takes him by surprise. He’s still talking, he hasn’t run out of words yet. It’s not time, he doesn’t have a plan. He isn’t ready. Someone’s screaming, and he realises it’s him.

‘It’s okay.’ Hands on his shoulders, Alistair’s voice in his ear. ‘Suri got him.’

Harry blinks, his vision clears, and he sees their attacker on the ground, eyes staring sightless, a pool of blood forming around his head. His heart’s still pounding and for a horrible moment he thinks he’s going to throw up. Then Alistair’s hands run down his arms, and Steve’s standing in front of him.

‘Harry? Are you okay? I mean, of course you’re okay, you’re always okay. But are you? Okay?’

He manages a smile, manages to nod in quick, jerking movements. He doesn’t have to look at Alistair to know he’s in trouble, but he has to look to make sure the gun really didn’t go off before Suri got her shot in. He’s fine, smoothing his suit, popping two pills to balance the adrenaline before it turns to acid in his stomach; already taking charge. The only blood is on the cobbles a couple of feet away, there’s none on him, none on Harry, even though for a moment he thinks he imagined it there, blossoming through white cotton like a rose. That was last time, Golding’s house. Alistair lived then. He’s still alive now. 

The scene descends into the same organised chaos as every shooting in the London after the fact. Everyone has a job to do, everyone’s distracted. It gives Harry a chance to run, to get away, and he takes it.

 

 

**…Ain’t Satisfactioning Me.**

 

That night Harry ran away and, predictably, Alistair followed him. He knew who it was because of the banging on the door. Suri would have knocked.

‘Look, I’m sorry-‘

‘I understand why you left.’

‘No, you don’t….’

Alistair put his hand up, palm flat on Harry’s chest. ’You were never in danger. You were trying to stop him from shooting me, not us.’

With a heartfelt sigh, Harry stepped back to let him in. ‘Drink?’

‘Definitely. The strongest thing you’ve got.’

He poured two generous tumblers of Kentucky Bourbon and handed one over. ‘Just because we’ve been to bed doesn’t mean you have to worry about me.’

‘Someone has to.’

‘Like you said, I was never in any danger.’

‘And yet you were the one who was afraid.’

Harry emptied his glass down his throat in one swallow before refilling it. ‘Remember I told you the man who wore the bracelet before me killed himself?’

Alistair drank his drink, put down the glass and reached for the bottle, taking it from Harry’s hand and tipping the whisky down his throat. He coughed, eyes watering.

‘If you die, however you die, I will never forgive you.’

Putting the bottle down on the nearest surface, he reached for Harry’s shirt and mashed their mouths together.

When Suri knocked a couple of hours later, neither of them felt the need to answer the door.


End file.
